[!@#$%!]

hahahahaha

i wrote this some pages back while chatting with antagon about french dispatch:

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

robinstigator will hate it no doubt lolol but thats what makes for horse racing

and yeah, what i like about these discussions is finding out how everyone sees things, because everyone sees differently. and the differences are the interesting part.

anyway, 2 things:

Originally Posted by Severian

French Dispatch was one of his worst. I love the guy but he’s taken “my little confection” filmmaking and turned it into something that feels like an highly detailed wedding cake and doesn’t feel like a human experience at all.

for me his worst ones are isle of dogs (i didn't finish it after having defended his style, lmao. i just lost interest) and the darjeeling limited, which i finished but did nothing for me. wasn't in the mood for either i guess. big yawns.

anyway found this new yorker review that addresses the very points you and rob make about french dispatch, like aesthetic distancing from reality, and excessive elaboration, etc. makes me want to rewatch it now.

and also i'll add... isn't distancing from reality what makes the aesthetic experience desirable? otherwise it's all cannibal holocaust in live 3d.

anyway check this if interested: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/th...ewheeling-film

the guy ends with this:

“The French Dispatch” is filled with the practical aesthetics of clothing, architecture, furniture, food, design, and discourse; it’s also filled with beautiful deeds and sublime gestures, steadfast love and physical courage, amid hostile conditions. There’s a long-familiar tradition in film of refinement meshing with evil, as with the epicurean sadism of movie Nazis and arch-criminals. It’s a demagogic trope that comforts viewers who presume that, conversely, their ordinary tastes must be a sign of their ordinary decency, too. But Anderson understands that the refinement of style can be a way of outwardly facing down the power of the world with one’s inner personal imperatives. Like such artists as Ernest Hemingway and Howard Hawks, he brings together the beauty of heroism and the heroism of beauty. In a sublime gesture of his own, he celebrates not only unsung heroes and those who tell their stories but also those who, like Howitzer and his staff of grammarians and illustrators, provide an accompaniment as stylish and as substantial as the adventures and inventions themselves.

i just thought he makes a good point about the "heroism of beauty" which, maybe this movie isn't beautiful for all, but ok. i'll get the streaming service this summer and revisit.

@diesel:

i haven't seen much of gaspar noé but while climax might be french he's argentinian (double hate for the hand of god? lmao). anyway i saw "love" by him and i can't remember a ton now. i remember i finished it... there was fucking and... sorry, drawing a blank, lol. very annoying characters, i think i recall now? i think voyeurism is his style without much more because all i vaguely recall is busy images. thanks for the warning.